Self Pub Aidhttp://www.selfpubaid.com
Self Publishing AidTue, 10 Jan 2017 13:47:25 +0000en-UShourly1https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6.1Is the Kindle Scout program worth it?http://www.selfpubaid.com/kindle-scout-program-worth/
http://www.selfpubaid.com/kindle-scout-program-worth/#respondTue, 14 Jun 2016 03:37:24 +0000http://www.selfpubaid.com/?p=61An analysis about the pros and cons of Kindle Scout which will allow you to make the decision about entering the program. There's a big debate over the internet about if Kindle Scout might be benefical for your writing career or not. Get to know the details

There’s a big debate over the internet whether entering the Kindle Scout program is worth it. My personal opinion is that it depends on a lot of factors. You should evaluate and decide if it’s good for you or not.

As you know, opinions are like belly-buttons: everybody has one. Some people think you should never enter it, while others say it’s the best option for your book.

Furthermore, it could work for some books and not so much for others. But it all depends on what you want to do with your writing career, what your long term strategies are, and if you’re willing to give up some aspects of the book that you’re going to submit to the program.

It all depends on what you want to do with your writing career, what your long term strategies are, and if you’re willing to give up some aspects of the book

The pros and cons of the Kindle Scout program

Amazon will have the legal rights of your book.Meaning that you will not be able to sell it on other platforms, like iBooks, B&N, Kobo, or others. You won’t be able to create an audiobook (Amazon will, if they deem it worthwhile). You won’t be able to translate your book into other languages. Again, Amazon could do it if they find it appropriate, but you’ll get only 20% from those sales.

Amazon will manage the marketing of your book. It sounds better than it is, as people tend to think that it means that Amazon will actively promote your book. The thing is that they will do what they consider enough to recoup the $1,500 they gave you upfront. For example, they can do their part by attracting possible readers and reviewers, which might be enough to prompt it into the bestseller list, but that doesn’t mean they’ll promote the book in a dynamic fashion.

You are free to publish your book in print. As Kindle Press is completely digital, the contract will allow you to publish your book in paper. CreateSpace (Another Amazon company), is a good option, because it’s cost-free for the author. Besides, it’s very convenient to have the book in print too, as readers can compare both prices (paper and Kindle) and will probably deem more attractive the Kindle version.

You’ll get a $1,500 advance on sales. Amazon will give you an advance against royalties for your book, once your book is selected for publishing. Assuming the book gets priced at $2.99, you’ll get around $2.10 royalty apiece (at 70% royalty), so the advance is the equivalent of selling about 714 books from the get-go. Not bad at all for a “new” author, isn’t it?

You’ll get nice exposure. Just by submitting your book to Kindle Scout, you’ll start getting exposure. Once you apply the methodology described in this book, you’ll gain more. Your book will go sky-high, and exposure is what your book needs to be successful. You’ll still keep the initial exposure even if your book isn’t selected; once you decide to self-publish your book (and you should, we’ll talk about it later) Amazon will send an email to all of your voters letting them know that the book is available. And the power of Amazon is not to be taken lightly.

Conclusion

Unless you’re a recognized author, you have the next Harry Potter or Fifty Shades of Grey, or you cannot live with a third party controlling the rights of your book, the Kindle Scout program could provide a lot of leverage to your career as a writer.

The contract with Amazon lasts for five years, in which if the sales are under $25,000, you get back the rights. There are other exceptions which you can consult on the Kindle Scout website.

In my opinion, the Kindle Scout program is a middle ground between self-publishing and major editorial house publishing. As it is not easy to get a contract with a major (not that getting one with Kindle Scout is), I think that Kindle Scout represents a great opportunity for most writers.

]]>http://www.selfpubaid.com/kindle-scout-program-worth/feed/0Maximizing your Kindle Scout Opportunitieshttp://www.selfpubaid.com/maximizing-kindle-scout-opportunities/
http://www.selfpubaid.com/maximizing-kindle-scout-opportunities/#respondTue, 14 Jun 2016 03:35:41 +0000http://www.selfpubaid.com/?p=58This book will allow you to manage your Kindle Scout campaign in a very efficient way. It will show you how to use social networks in your favor, for promoting your book, and anchoring it in the Hot & Trending list

Winning a Kindle Scout contract could be a major asset for the career of any new writer. The countdown will start once Kindle Scout admits your book into the program. While Amazon doesn’t put much emphasis on this point, it’s necessary to conduct a marketing campaign for its promotion, and you must start it the minute your book goes live on Kindle Scout. There’s no time to waste. Think that at any given time, there are around 250 books campaigning, trying to win the contract as well as you.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that there are going to be winners and losers. They could all be chosen, or none at all. However, to have a higher chance, your book should be in the Hot & Trending list for as long as possible, therefore maximizing your Kindle Scout opportunities.

The goal of this campaign is to attract a high number of visits to a campaign page they will create to display it.

How do I find visitors to my campaign page?

In principle, this may appear to be a conundrum. It’s likely that just a few people are familiar with your facet as a writer, reason why getting the needed support may look like an uphill struggle.

When Fatal DNA entered Kindle Scout, I had to solve this problem right away. I knew that social networks were a vital part of the solution.

However, not having a large followers base was a huge disadvantage. I knew that I had to convince a great number of people to support me and nominate my book, if I wanted to maximize my Kindle Scout opportunities.

The method presented in the book will increase your Kindle Scout opportunities. No matter how many followers or friends you have on social networks. It’s a simple method, organized and very efficient. It made my book stay in the Hot & Trending list during 97.9% of the time, which is 705 out of 720 possible hours

The Hot & Trending list

The Hot & Trending is a list made for the most popular books. Even though Kindle Scout is not a popularity contest, it’s important that your book gets in there, since, according to Kindle Scout, the books that attract more interest within the audience will be the ones considered for publishing.

The method presented in the book will increase your Kindle Scout opportunities, no matter how many followers or friends you have on social networks. It’s a simple method, organized and very efficient. It made my book stay in the Hot & Trending list during 97.9% of the time, which is 705 out of 720 possible hours.

All the tools used in this method are free, so you don’t have to make any extra investment to implement it.

Summary: Maximizing your Kindle Scout opportunities

To maximize Kindle Scout opportunities, your book must stay in the Hot & Trending list for as long as possible

The “Kindle Scout Hot & Trending List” book offers you a method which will allow you to successfully conduct your campaign

It’s very easy to implement this method, using free tools

This method kept the author’s book in the Hot & Trending list for 97.9% of the campaign duration, that is 705 out of 720 possible hours

Book Trailer for Kindle Scout Hot & Trending List

Take a look to the trailer of the book I wrote for helping people with their Kindle Scout campaigns

Take a quick peek at the book

Here, you can see a preview of the electronic version of the book. There’s also a print version available.

I wrote this book to try help people to structure their campaigns, and it’s the result of what I’ve learned while running my campaign. It was so good for me, that I decided to share it with my fellow authors.

We authors are usually busy doing what we like to do: writing. But having the opportunity of winning a contract with Kindle Scout is a game changer for most of us, so giving your beloved book a chance to get noticed is worth the effort.

]]>http://www.selfpubaid.com/maximizing-kindle-scout-opportunities/feed/0How to design a good book coverhttp://www.selfpubaid.com/how-to-design-a-good-book-cover/
http://www.selfpubaid.com/how-to-design-a-good-book-cover/#respondMon, 13 Jun 2016 23:53:05 +0000http://www.selfpubaid.com/?p=54Designing a good book cover is primordial for the success of a book. It's something that must be very well thought. Learn what are the keypoints for an effective cover, together with the available options

We’re all familiar with they saying that a picture speaks a thousand words.

Even though the power of words is unstoppable, to design a good book cover we must follow this principle. It should be understood that it’s not just some image, or a random pretty image, and certainly not an over-elaborated image the one that should represent our work.

It is also known that a book shouldn’t be judged by its cover. This may be valid for many facets of life, but like every other rule, it has its exception; ironically, the exception in this case is found exactly when we take this precept literally.

Our book will be judged by its cover this time.

Here I’ll talk about how to successfully design a good book cover for self-published books, where a team of people working on the cover isn’t an option. The job of an independent writer includes having to involve in every phase of the process, and the elaboration of the cover isn’t to be taken lightly.

An excellent cover is the best marketing weapon. In a super competitive world, where every passing day thousands of books are added to the bookstores’ catalogs, the cover is the only element that can make your book stand out before the eyes of millions of costumers.

In the case of brick and mortar bookstores, the books with higher exhibition are the ones published by major publishing houses. But that’s another story. It’s likely that others factors come into play there.

On online bookstores we have more chances of exhibiting and selling our books, so having a good design is mandatory. We need our work to stand out among the books –millions of books- that are exhibited there to the scrutiny of potential buyers. And for that is fundamental to design a good book cover.

That’s why the cover shouldn’t be less than brilliant.

It’s said that the difference between a cover made by a professional and one made by an amateur is the use of the typography. It isn’t only choosing the font, or the family of fonts, but also its size, color and positioning

Good opportunities are usually thrown away by badly designed covers. Authors tend to make the mistake of wanting to show something that only make sense to us, since we know by heart what our book is about. But that fails resoundingly in the reader’s eyes, who aren’t able to understand what we want to convey.

We also tend to think that once our book is read, the cover will become much clearer to the reader, who will appreciate and think we are “so clever”. But that isn’t how this works. That cover will never be appreciated for the simple reason that the book won’t sell in the first place.

Less is more to successfully design a good book cover

The concept of minimalism is vital for the process. Every book has an unique proposal. An element that sets it apart and gives life to the story. That makes it different in the case of non-fiction books.

Your job is to isolate this proposal, fill it with emotion, motivation, and then you’re done!

It sounds easy, doesn’t it? In fact, it is, but it requires more thought than action. The ideal solution would be to create a visual metaphor to express the content in a single image. That’s the way to successfully design a good book cover.

The importance of the genre

Regardless of the cover we want to create, there are certain parameters that need to be respected so that the potential reader (buyer) can quickly identify which genre the books belongs to.

It’s recommended to go through many covers within the genre of our book and identify common elements in them. Start with the bestsellers list, since those books got there for a reason. That should be the starting point for the creation of our metaphor.

Typography

It’s said that the difference between a cover made by a professional and one made by an amateur is the use of the typography. It isn’t only choosing the font, or the family of fonts, but also its size, color and positioning.

It’s the way in which the typography merges with the images, how it becomes part of that metaphor and makes the perfect harmony within the visual metaphor we want to portray.

Two examples

To illustrate how to successfully design a good book cover, I’m going to show you two books of my own and explain briefly the design process of their cover. I’ve chosen a fiction book and non-fiction one for this purpose.

For fiction, we have ADN Fatal, a book in the thriller genre. The cover depicts the body of a naked woman, covered by a torn blue screen, thus revealing the lower back of her body. A double-helix of DNA is shown on top of her back, and you can see several nanobots walking all over the helices. Some blood drops complement the design.

As you can see, it’s a minimalistic but powerful cover. The genre can be grasped immediately, and the idea is conveyed in a simple but effective way.

The second cover that I’m going to use as an example it’s from a non-fiction book: Kindle Scout Hot & Trending List. Again, we have a clean minimalist cover, where it’s easily graspable that the book is based on social media interaction.

Here the typography plays a significant role, where the subtitle of the book: How to Get (and Stay) There is blends in perfectly.

In this case, the visual metaphor is based on the fact that the book provides a method so easy to use that people can apply it from the comfort of their tablet. The emotion is transmitted through an image placed inside the device, where you can see the message being spread all over the world.

Should I design my own cover?

As it’s said before, independent writers must control every part of the process. Including, in many cases, usurping the functions of other professionals, for one simple economic reason: hiring them costs money.

If we are qualified, there are certain things we can do on our own, but unless you count with solid formation in graphic design, the elaboration of the cover shouldn’t be one of them. It’s too primordial to leave it to chance.

Hiring the elaboration of a cover can be expensive. It can even be over $900 (see CreateSpace services). But there are always cost-effective alternatives we can take.

So, where should I look?

All of this is conditioned by the budget at hand. There are options like elance.com, 99designs.com, etc., where we can find excellent professionals to make our cover, at costs ranging from $100 to $300. There’s also fiverr.com, the service that’s been changing many things on the internet.

The problem with Fiverr is that, generally, you get what you pay for. At the beginning Fiverr only offered $5 gigs, and maybe it wasn’t a good choice then. But the service has evolved, nowadays it counts with many options, that while won’t be $5, they can range from $20 to $50, which is more than reasonable for a good cover.

Regardless of the service you wish to use, examine closely the works of the professionals when they offer their services. More importantly, make sure that the person you choose understands the concepts discussed in this article.

There are many gigs on Fiverr that ask you to choose the image in which you want to the cover to be based on. Avoid those at any cost. Your job is to provide a brief about the book, and whoever is designing the cover should work from that. Otherwise, there’s no use in hiring them. I offer a gig on Fiverr to design good book covers, in case you want to consider it. You can take a look at it here.

Validate it!

Once you have your cover and you feel happy with it, validate it with some people to confirm that you’re conveying exactly what you want. You can ask people in your own environment. Social networks can help a lot too, especially if you have two runner-ups. A quick online survey can set you on the path to choosing which one of the two is better.

Summary

The cover is fundamental for the success of your book. To successfully design a good book cover you have to take into account:

Determine the unique proposal of your work.

Incorporate elements to transmit emotion.

Create a visual metaphor.

Study the cover of the bestsellers in the genre of your book.

Hire a professional for the elaboration of the cover, unless you have a solid background in graphic design.

Validate the cover with friends to see if it’s in line with the expected.